


Digging for Fossils

by generic_cruiser



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Avengers/Agents of SHIELD crossover, Gen, crossover time, very much ignoring canon rn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 04:00:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29289471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/generic_cruiser/pseuds/generic_cruiser
Summary: What if Daisy had been the one to find Captain America in the ice?An AU fic set around the time of Avengers.
Relationships: Implied Phil Coulson/Melinda May, Jemma Simmons & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Leo Fitz & Jemma Simmons, Leo Fitz & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Nick Fury & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Phil Coulson & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Skye | Daisy Johnson & Antoine Triplett, Steve Rogers & Skye | Daisy Johnson, implied Daisy Johnson/Lincoln Campbell
Comments: 10
Kudos: 64





	Digging for Fossils

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, a crossover and an AU *major jazz hands* 
> 
> This is part of a much bigger and longer AU fic I'm working on, but I felt this worked well on its own so here you go. If you'd like to read the whole fic please let me know and I'll start posting chapters. The timeline for this is based in the movies' timelines, but the whole fic very much isn't so that's the only major change I made. The major things you need to know: Daisy was adopted by Coulson and May when she was 8, and has been friends with Fitzsimmons and Trip forever.
> 
> Yes, the title is based off of Natasha Romanoff's comment in Winter Soldier I thought it was a nice pun so I ran with it.

“I feel like we’re being punished for something.” Daisy kicked at the snow, a hard movement to pull off in the puffiest clothes imaginable. 

Trip shined his flashlight around the plane, the light reflecting off the metal and snow. “What makes you say that?” 

“The two smartest people in S.H.I.E.L.D., one of the top specialists ever, and Nick Fury’s protégé get sent to fucking Antarctica to dig through some old plane? Feels like a punishment to me.”

Simmons looked up from her equipment. “Technically, we’re in the Arctic, not Antarctica. And I don’t think Fitz and I are the smartest in S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“Yeah, I think that would go to Tony Stark,” Fitz commented, frowning at the beeping machine in his hands.

Daisy scoffed. “Please, I saw your sketch of the Iron Man armor in your desk, Fitz. It was way better than what Stark has now. Plus, he’s only a consultant. And don’t you dare say Banner because he’s a consultant too and I bet you’re smarter than him. My point, though, is that we shouldn’t be here.”

“I think it’s cool,” Trip cut in. “This thing is probably from the 40s, and pretty well preserved by the looks of it.” He shined his light on the broken pilot’s chair, frowning at how battered it was.

“Nerd. Fitzsimmons, you guys getting anything?” Daisy fell into her role as team leader, deciding that taking this op seriously could get her home faster. She hadn’t seen Lincoln in a month, and there was definitely no service for her to call her mom in the middle of a frozen tundra. Plus, somehow, under all her layers, she was still freezing cold.

“There are some weird energy readings, they almost seem like they’re fading. Nothing should’ve lasted this long in here,” Simmons called out. She whispered with Fitz, the two of them becoming lost in their own science-y world. Daisy knew better than to interrupt, and instead opted for wandering around the old plane with Trip.

He was probably right, about it being from the 40s. The structure was unlike anything Daisy had seen in any of her dad’s history books, or in any of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s records. Her best guess was that it was a Nazi plane; they didn’t have many of those to reference, so it was plausible. 

Swinging her flashlight around, she noticed the light hit something red and incredibly out of place. She backtracked her light, and managed to pinpoint the red glow. 

“Guys, come look.”

Fitzsimmons abandoned their little huddle, following Trip over to Daisy and standing a respectable distance away. Letting her work. 

The surface of the red...thing was hard and smooth underneath the snow. Daisy heard Fitz make a mundane complaint about possible radiation, but he probably knew it would fall on deaf ears. Which it did. 

She brushed more snow away and… “Holy shit.” 

~

“Agent Johnson, what are you-”

“A SAT phone, do you have one?” Daisy pushed past several agents, digging around for the phone in question. 

“Yes, but-” 

“Where?” She let the nervous agent speak long enough to direct her to the SAT phone, then shooed him away. Trip replaced him at her side, looking somewhere between excited as fuck and scared as fuck. 

Daisy’s hands shook, definitely with excitement, and she turned to Trip. “Who do I call?”

He said “Your dad,” and at the same time Fitzsimmons called out “Fury,” from their side of the table they had taken over. 

“Two beats one,” Fitz said almost instantly. “You gotta call Fury, he’s your supervisor.”

“He’s Coulson’s supervisor too, he’d understand that Daisy would want to tell her dad first,” Trip argued, and Daisy cringed at hearing him call her dad “Coulson.” All her friends had been calling him anything in between Phil and “Daisy’s dad” for as long as she could remember. The only reason she went by Johnson in the field was so there was no confusion, but it was still weird to hear. 

She punched in the number as Trip and Fitz got into it, and Simmons tried to mediate. Daisy’s team was a bunch of morons. At least they were good at their jobs.

The phone rang for an impossibly long time, giving Daisy time to move to a quieter corner of their hastily formed base. 

“Daisy? You okay?”

She rolled her eyes. “Why do you think something went wrong? I can’t just call because I want to?” 

“Are you?” 

“Okay fine, no, but I’m not hurt and nothing went wrong either.” 

Her dad sighed from D.C. “What’s up then?” 

It was almost too much to say over the phone. “We found Steve Rogers.”

~

Nick Fury’s office was almost rudely comfortable. All the times Daisy had been in it, and it still insulted her that it was so nice. And after the first time she mentioned it, she was pretty sure he had been adding to it, making it nicer just to aggravate her. Best SO ever. 

“And so now we have an unconscious supersoldier from the 40s locked up and no idea what to do with him,” Daisy concluded her report, letting the room fall silent for a good minute.

“And I thought a scientist turning into a green rage monster every once in a while was weird.” Fury pressed his hands together, assessing the agents in front of him with his good eye. Daisy shifted uncomfortably under his gaze, as did her friends. “How do you think we should proceed?”

She had a plan, sort of. “I think we should have him wake up in a familiar environment, like a makeshift 40s recovery room. I want to be there when he wakes up, to explain everything. We can’t have him freak out and go all supersoldier rage-y on us.” 

Fury glanced at Trip and Fitzsimmons. “And you all agree?” 

“Yes sir, it was a group decision.” Trip spoke, mostly because Fitzsimmons were nervous as hell. They were under the impression that Daisy’s SO was scary, for some reason.

“Alright then, let me know what you need.” 

~

Waiting for Captain America to wake up was boring, and then it wasn’t. 

He awoke fast and terrified, jumping up from his cot and immediately raising his fists as if expecting a fight. 

“Whoa, whoa, Captain Rogers, calm down. You’re safe, I promise. I’m with the SSR.” The last part had been Simmons’s idea, and it worked; Rogers calmed down enough for Daisy to ease him back onto the bed. 

He glanced over her form analytically. “What are you wearing?” Daisy blinked at his bluntness, and he seemed to take it as offense. “I didn’t mean anything by it, I’ve just never seen…” 

“No, you’re good, I get it. I’m Daisy, I’m here to answer any and all questions you have.” This was the risky part, the part she had rehearsed the most. They had to guess at his questions, but she had prepared for the most obvious ones. 

“Who won the war?” 

So far, Captain America was predictable as fuck. “We did, Captain. World War Two is over.” Selective truths. 

Rogers sighed with relief, almost making Daisy feel bad. She had omitted the fact that technically there were nazis again, and that World War Two ended 70 years ago. That came later.

He looked around, taking in the small room. “This looks wrong.” 

“Yeah, sorry, the pictures I had to go off of were pretty shit.” Daisy noticed Rogers’s reaction to her cursing and realized her mistake: women probably didn’t curse much where he was from. And, y’know, she had revealed that the room was based on pictures so there was that.

“Where are we?” Shit, he was starting to panic. 

“New York City.” _2011._

“Why are you dressed so weird? And why does this place look not right?” Shit. 

Daisy stood, trying to regain some control. “Okay, look, this is kind of crazy and really hard to explain but I need you to not freak out, okay? You’re safe, I promise.” Rogers nodded, thank God. This was all going faster than expected.

“Okay, here goes. You crashed your plane in the Arctic….70 years ago. You’ve been sleeping for almost a century.” 

Watching that sink in was kind of heartbreaking. 70 years meant everyone he knew was either dead or on their way, and he was still like 20. Plus, this would be a huge ass cultural reset. 

“What year is it?” His voice was _shaking,_ and Daisy was probably very unprepared for this. 

“2011. Welcome to the 21st century.” Big fucking whoop. 

~

“Agent Johnson.” 

“Hi.”

Steve Rogers's gym was kind of depressing. It was one of the only things he had asked for from S.H.I.E.L.D.; a 1940s esque gym all just for him. The only vaguely interesting thing was the pile of popped punching bags in the corner. 

Rogers grabbed a towel and sat down. “Does Director Fury want me to come in?”

Daisy fiddled with the file in her hands. “Yeah, we have a...problem. Your expertise is needed.”

“Expertise?”

She opened the folder, then showed him the page on the Tesseract. “We’ve been studying this, trying to understand what it is. Yesterday, a portal opened from it and an Asgardian popped out, promising to smash Earth like an ant. He took several agents hostage, kind of, and stole the Tesseract. We need to find it.” 

“And you need me for what, exactly? Don’t you guys have fancy technology now that surpasses my knowledge?”

“Yeah, but you have first hand experience. Plus, you might be needed for other reasons. We need all the help we can get.” He had taken the whole aliens thing pretty well, all things considered.

Rogers sighed, then grabbed his things. Daisy took that as a yes. “There’s a file and an agent at your apartment. Pack a bag. My...er, Agent Coulson will debrief you on your way to our base of operations.” 

He stared at her for a second. “Will you be there?”

“Probably not, I have to supervise my team from the Hub. But if they need me, I’ll be there.” Fitzsimmons had been uber excited to study the Tesseract, and were even more excited to learn about Loki. Trip, on his part, was more interested in whether or not Captain America remembered the Howling Commandos. They were working towards them getting to talk about his grandfather. 

“Thank you, Agent Johnson.” 

“Seriously dude, just call me Daisy.”

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback and requests are always welcome, and if you'd like to read the rest of this AU please lmk, and I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
